I'm a "late bloomer". It's taken me more than half a century to realise I'm a delightful, delicious, sensual and sexy woman. The fact that I'm plus size, and the fact that I'm growing older, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with who I am, what I am, what I can become, my abilities, my capabilities, my strengths.
You see I grew up in an era where little girls were supposed to sit in a corner, to be quiet, and not to be loud or noisy, or a nuisance, or in fact to be anything other than a little mouse. I didn't always see "why" I should be like this, but I didn't dare open my mouth and question things.
Maybe I should have. Because there were lots of things that I needed to know. That I should have been taught and had explained to me. I grew up with much innocence, and with many thousands of other little girls, grew up in strict households, and didn't see anything wrong with that. Because we were all in the same situation.
So I think I was most fortunate in falling into a lot of deep holes as I grew up. Others did, and many never did scramble up out of those holes. Innocence can so easily so mistaken for ignorance, and ignorance can be disastrous if it occurs in changing of influencing a young girls life.
With never ending encouragement from my mother, and I see now much protection (from the world and what was in it) I soon came to the conclusion that I could do something with my life, if I applied myself, if I worked hard and smart, and never lost my focus. If I was always kind and sensitive to other people's feelings and listened to other people's opinions, but there was to be no yielding if I felt they were wrong. Yes, there were times when I told myself I would never get to where I wanted, and then the stubbornness would set in, and I'd push myself beyond what I thought were my limits. This worked so many times, that it became second nature.
This knowledge and experience I soon found could be shared. Women wanted to know HOW to achieve self confidence, HOW to bring about changes in their attitudes towards themselves, and HOW to live contented, although at times difficult, lives. It opened up yet another challenge for me in being able to share what I knew, what I had learned, and many of the hints and strategies that had helped and protected me during my growing up and maturing years.
You might think that I've become conceited in my older age. Not so. I've become more aware of myself. I've become confident. I've become my own "advocate" riding a white charger to fiercely take on anyone who does me wrong. I've become more pleased with how I think and how I live and how I act and interact with other people. I'm spontaneous but I'm genuine.
And I've met thousands of women just like me. Ordinary everyday women who because of many different circumstances never found the opportunity to discover themselves. Not until they were greying, and becoming wrinkled. And the liberation from feelings of "I'm not good enough" or "I'm not intelligent enough" were life-changing.
We don't have to stay in the cocoon of self-doubt; we don't have to believe everything that people say about us to us and to outsiders; we are articulate, intelligent, unique human beings. We're able to feel secure in the knowledge
that we know what is best, for us, without any interference from well-meaning but so often very wrong intentions of others. We don't tolerate inappropriate behaviours or attitudes. We know what's what, and we know what we need.
So if that means aging outrageously, because we have the audacity of saying what we think, and explaining what we need, then so be it.
It's a great adventure.
© Rose Davida, UK
At a time when we're increasingly sensitive about insulting other minorities, fat people are still fair game.
In the real world (our world) it seems that it's OK to discriminate against the fat (even though we are told that "discrimination is now illegal - oh, yes? just who is kidding who?)
Studies in USA, Europe and Australia have found that fat people earn less money than others. They are less likely to be hired or promoted. They routinely face ridicule from their doctors and health facilitators (still!)
We've invested weight with so many meanings that numbers on the scale have become a shorthand for self-worth.We're told that:"slenderness is not just beautiful - it proclaims that you;re feminine, self-disciplined, well-adjusted and sexy" "fat, on the other hand, reveals that you're sloppy and self-indulgent, out of control and out of the running as a sexual being"
It's a disastrous combination. Our ideal of thinness is unrealistic for most of the population, yet we all buy the idea that there's something seriously wrong with us if we deviate from it.
There is however, another value that we attach to overweight that may be even more powerful than a sense of sin. We see fat as "low-class". Our culture equates slenderness with sexiness and even intelligence.
And who, in the main, keeps this body myth alive? Women, yes women. There seems to be a clear connection between the gains women have made in the outside world - bringing confusing and conflicting choices about roles - and our growing hysteria about our own bodies. It's as if keeping the body on a tight rein, or not letting our lapses show, is a way of re-assuring ourselves and the world that our desires aren't voracious, that our needs aren't bottomless, that despite our own uncertainty, we are in control.
However, it's not enough to understand this obsession intellectually. The battle for self acceptance involved unlearning a lot of entrenched ideas. It also involves a lot of pain.
If you've spent most of your life starving yourself without success, it hurts to recognise that all that deprivation was a waste.
That's why a lot of women cling to the promise that thin equals happy. In many cases they want dieting to be a magical way of becoming another person.
It takes great courage to accept yourself in a world that values thinness above all else. The miracle is, that some people manage it.
You can too. If that's really what you want to do.
© Rose Davida, UK
Whether we like it or not society says, "if you're thin then you're sexy, self-disciplined and well-adjusted". On the other hand, "if you're fat, then you're out of control, sloppy and self-indulgent".Let's confront this issue full on, and blast the myths dealing with size and our acceptance by society based on that size, out of the window, right now!At least 50% of all women are obsessed with a real or imaginary 5-7-1/2 kilos of fat. For a woman who knows she is 20 kilos overweight if not more, then this can become not just an obsession but despair. But in many cases, they're the only ones who can even see that extra weight over and above what they think they should look like. Yet it can keep them from buying clothes, going for a swim, doing anything physical. An inner voice tells them they have to wait until they're thinner.
Women in past years have spent hours debating the "fors" and "againsts" the Scarsdale diet, the Atkins diet, appetite suppressants, carbohydrate diets, grapefruit diets, egg diets, the water, the pasta diets, the Israeli diet, the Mediterranean diet, and even the beer diet. Now we seem to be going through another tunnel of discovery (or denial,whichever) in that many women take pains to explain that they are no longer "hung-up" about weight, size and shape and that they've come to accept themselves as they are. And yet, these women are seen to be popping the latest "diet" shake or nibbling the diet-cracker and attending the gym for fast-loss fitness, or visiting weight-loss "weekends away" at health farms and resorts, including B&B's right around Australia (not to mention Europe and the USA).
In many ways our obsession with thinness has never made less sense than it does today. We know now that body weight has as much to do with heredity as willpower, that permanent weight loss is far more complicated than we once believed. We've learned that the old standards for our ideal weights were set unrealistically low and we know that the starvation diets of the past are counter productive and potentially dangerous.
But for many of us, the message hasn't sunk in. There seems to be a huge gap between what we know in our minds and how we actually feel about ourselves.
Believe it or not, but our preference for almost fleshless bodies is fairly rare in historical and cultural terms. Even in the recent past, large breasts and flaring hips padded with flesh were seem to be acceptable if not preferable. The Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe would be considered fat and overweight today, yet she was seen to be the symbol of sensual and seductiveness in the mid 60s (and to some of us she remains that way). In no way can you compare her curves with today's models and actresses.
Plump women are prized in countries like Sierra Leone and many of the Pacific Islands. Chunky matrons carry themselves with a jaunty confidence in their own worth and desirability. On the other hand, today we regard fat with horror, similar to the attitude held by the Victorians in relation to "sex".
© Rose Davida, UK
This subject causes much debate and division between individuals and families and partners. When WLS is offered as a last resort to resolve your personal problems, by Specialists who you trust and have faith in, then of course you must follow your heart and your head. You, and only you, can make the decision to go ahead or not, and that responsibility cannot, and should not, be overridden by anyone else.
But I’m talking about people who use underhand tactics to undermine your self esteem by suggesting, and even demanding, that you should do something quite radical in order to meet THEIR criteria of acceptability.
Subtle and not so subtle references come out in conversations as to the benefits of Weight Loss Surgery. Once again the pressure emanates from all of the following - the medical and health and fitness industry; the media; family and (so-called) friends. Even strangers.
And then partners get their opinions in on the act. “Why don’t you get something done to your boobs or your fat tummy or your thick thighs and ankles; or your face.”
What is it they’re trying to do? With few exceptions (when it is through love and they’re concerned about your health) they’re all about seeking control. They want not only to manipulate your body but your mind as well. They’re not happy in allowing you to be you; they want to be seen as the Puppet Master.
They don’t look at the surgery and what it costs to a person (and I’m not talking about cost here!), but they want you to look like the model on the screen or in the magazine. Do they care whether the surgery does untold damage to your body, or to your mind? Do they care whether the surgery is the first step to multi-surgical applications? Do they care about your feelings or emotions as you try to comprehend what they want from you?
Do they care if in carrying out their wishes that you suddenly find yourself hospitalised for lengthy periods, apart from the surgery itself, for serious infections that attack not only your wound but can in fact mean you are incapacitated for lengthy periods, that may even repeat themselves over time.
No, it is not always as easy as it seems! And it most certainly is not as simple as it sounds!
At a recent self-esteem talk among a group of women, someone asked me just what forms of "emotional abuse" am I talking about, as it relates to being plus-size. That got me thinking because emotional abuse based on size impacts upon every single aspect of a plus-sizer's life. It effects how that person feels and deals with situations and attitudes within the home, the school, the workplace and the community.
It effects the whole emotional being of a person. It permeates the mind and a person can be faced with constant negative self-talk all day and every day. It manifests itself in guilt - each bite of food brings with it feelings of immense guilt and embarrassment. Such feelings build up until such time as the person loses all sense of proportion and perspective and binges. Then the diets begin. And guilt resurfaces from another angle - more negative self talk - and the spiral downwards into a feeling of utter despair and inadequacy becomes a living nightmare. A monotonous and dangerous life-style of dieting and binging and more dieting can become a habit. Causing havoc all the way.
Emotional abuse can be scathing; can be cruel; can be subtle; can be not-subtle; can be insidious; can be soul destroying. It can become physically destroying as well. Some plus-sizers live on the edge; relying on medication to get them through a day; they live scared and frightened lives, all due to the fact that other people (and sometimes this includes family and/or friends) can upset the balance by saying and inferring and eluding to a person's size in conversation, or through looks and suggestive hand-movements. Plus-sizers can be treated like naughty children; they can be totally ignored; they can be made feel unacceptable in many effective but totally inappropriate ways.
And let me say something so simple that quite often it can be unseen. While there are occasions when family and/or friends are trying to be helpful, the majority of times they are not. They want the plus-sizer to "do what they're told" and doing what they're told means, "lose weight!" The irony of this is that if the person does lose weight, they are still treated as if they were larger or heavier. Then a really weird thing happens. Quite often the women in the family or some within a group of friends turn nasty against the person who has lost the weight; and caustic remarks about other facets of her looks or her life become part of the new vocabulary between them. It doesn't make sense, but it happens. Women sometimes can be our worst enemy!
But I'm not talking about those trying to help, I'm talking about those who take pleasure in making fun or a plus-sizer within a family or among friends. I have often told so-called friends that they are anything but. Friends don't pull each other to pieces verbally; they don't harp on what a plus-sizer wears or looks like - they do give constructive advice especially when asked, and they do offer to go shopping with their plus-size friends and give advice on simple things like colours that suit; designs that look better than others; hemlines and things like that. That gives the plus-sizer guidelines that she can follow because she starts seeing herself through the eyes of her friend.
Emotional abuse can start as young as kindergarten age and even younger. It can continue right throughout a person's life. What a terrible shame, that plus-sizers have to confront this sort of hostility from people who should care but who don't.
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A lot of people, and this goes for most people in western societies at least, form the opinion that because a person is plus-size then they deserve to be treated as less than acceptable. They may not actually put it into words always, but they certainly show by their behaviour that this is what they think.
This inappropriate behaviour can range from disdain and indifference, through intolerance, and then into ridicule. All these behaviours represent one thing and one thing only discrimination based on size and as a consequence those behaviours shout "emotional abuse".
Yet you ask anyone who shows you contempt or treats you unfairly or makes you feel embarrassed because of your size, whether they are abusing you, and they’ll quickly say "of course not!" Just who are they trying to kid?
But emotional abuse and quite often verbal abuse or whatever they like to call it such as this, is discrimination in its lowest and coarsest form. Of course there’s also physical abuse and this is a subject that has horrendous ramifications and while it doesn’t only apply to plus-sizers, it is nevertheless a scandal that society needs to confront and resolve. Not so easy? I agree.
But let’s get back to emotional abuse based on size. It’s very insidious and there are times when you may not even be aware that it is happening. Until you think about it afterwards. Then it becomes crystal clear. The subtle or not so subtle looks, smirks, the eyes of the other person taking in your size and then either looking away or even in the worst scenario actually saying something derogatory about you. The jokes, those jokes that make you cringe, but you laugh at yourself anyway, because you’re so embarrassed by their lack of sensitivity and of course you want to be seen to have an open mind and able to laugh at yourself. Laugh at yourself? Of course there are times when this is OK, but there are countless times when it is not. We have the right to choose when we laugh at ourselves, just as everyone else has. We do not, and should not, have to accept other people's bad manners and distasteful jokes, without having the right to stand up for ourselves. Yet, consistently, if a plus-sizer responds in any way, suddenly the situation is turned against them and they're told "you can't take a joke!". Oh yes we can. But it's the sort of joke and whether that joke is aimed specifically at us, that we should not have to "take" or accept.
And I encourage plus-sizers to never believe anyone who says, when they see you react by blushing or obvious embarrassment or stammering or withdrawing into yourself, that they didn’t mean it.
Look, let’s be brutally honest with ourselves here, they meant it and they meant every word of it. It was in their thoughts and therefore they verbalised those thoughts.
So what do you do? One of either two things. Accept their behaviour - and they’ll keep doing it, be sure of that - or stand up for yourself. How do you stand up for yourself? By being honest with them (and to yourself). Tell them “what you’ve said has offended and hurt me. I’d like an apology.” Now I've found that sometimes they won't apologise and have no intention of ever apologising. This once again leaves you with two options. One, let them get away with it, or walk away from them. The course is open to you. OK so if you decide on walking away, it may well mean that you are lonelier that you deserve to be, but at least you'll have your pride intact. And why look at it as though you have to lose out - if you remove yourself from the situation whereby you are faced with such abuse and ultimate embarrassment, then you'll have the time and opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and to seek out new interests and new friends. And there are new friends out there waiting for you. Believe it. Friends who will accept you for who and what you are right now!
It can be done, and it may be difficult, but you’ll be the winner in the long run.
that we know what is best, for us, without any interference from well-meaning but so often very wrong intentions of others. We don't tolerate inappropriate behaviours or attitudes. We know what's what, and we know what we need. 
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